Reverse-lookup service exposed millions of photos of people’s faces

The people-search tool ClarityCheck left over 9 million image files and sensitive personal data exposed in an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket. The breach included photos of adults and children, as well as contact information, despite claims of privacy.
Why it matters
This incident underscores the security risks associated with data-scraping services and the failure of some platforms to protect the sensitive personal information they aggregate.
oops Reverse-lookup service exposed millions of photos of people’s faces People-search tool ClarityCheck left database containing more than 9M image files exposed.
12 Credit: picture alliance / Contributor Credit: picture alliance / Contributor Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav When someone uploads a photo to the people-search tool ClarityCheck, the website has a clear message: “Your reverse image search is private and secure.” New research , though, shows that the website left more than 9 million image files, including photographs of people’s faces, publicly exposed . And a second misconfiguration publicly exposed people’s email addresses and phone numbers.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in